Critique of: Sport-Related Identities and the “Toxic Jock”

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Critique of: Sport-Related Identities and the “Toxic Jock” The purpose of the research study done by Miller (2009) was to examine the link between athletic involvement and the formation of personal identity. The sport-related identities of the participants were broken down into two categories: the “athlete” and the “jock”. Once the sports-related identities were established what causes an athlete to become a “toxic jock” was explored. Using almost 600 undergraduate students from a Northeastern U.S. college, the researcher looked at how athletes identify themselves in both internal and social settings. Research was conducted in order to see how athletes, both male and female, identified themselves when it came to their athletic careers. As previously mentioned the researcher used categories of the “jock” and the “athlete” mentality to breakdown the athletes’ personas. These two athletic identities were determined by surveying the participants on how they responded to questions regarding their sports-related identities, goal orientation, and masculine norms. Participants were divided into the jock and athlete categories based upon how they answered questions based upon their goal orientation. If the participants turned out to be more task-oriented their identity was more likely to be an athlete. Goal-orientation people were found to determine success by placing emphasis on mastering skills through hard work and commitment. The ego oriented people defined success based on their ability to out perform their opponents. If the participant looked to be more ego-oriented, they most likely identified with the jock character. Male participants were found to be the only gender that fell into the category of the ego orientation. Both men and women were found to be in the task-oriented category. One of the final segments of the survey included testing on

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